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Joy Reid Compares Mississippi Law Banning Abortions After 15 Weeks To ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

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MSNBC host Joy Reid compared a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy to “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Reid said that the spring of 2022 will be a “seminal moment in America for women’s reproductive rights.” The Supreme Court agreed to hear a Mississippi case directly challenging Roe v. Wade and a ruling is expected by June of 2022.

“Today the Supreme Court agreed to hear Mississippi’s appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy,” Reid began. “It’s a terrifying prospect eerily reminiscent of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ where far right-wing religious extremists took up arms against America to carve out their own country out of ours. One where women and their bodies were under the complete control of almost extravagantly corrupt and hypocritical ‘men of God.'” (RELATED: SCOTUS Rules In Favor Of Abortion Advocates In Major Pro-Life Loss)

Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to hear the case after the Fifth Court of Appeals struck down a state law banning abortions after 15 weeks in December of 2019. The 2018 law was challenged by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the law firm Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and the Mississippi Center for Justice on behalf of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi.

“What’s so scary and frankly traumatizing about that show and the book that inspired it is that it starts off in the very place that we live in right now where women have the right to choose what they do with their bodies until they don’t,” Reid said. “And then in what seems like a blink of an eye, those rights were just gone.”

This case will be the first major Supreme Court abortion case where all three of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justice appointees will participate. Reid claimed that pro-life people are “thrilled” about the case because of the conservative majority on the court.

“Naturally, abortion opponents are thrilled given the new conservative makeup of the court, especially after the arrival of justice Amy Coney Barrett. Under his eye,” Reid said, quoting The Handmaid’s Tale. “Barrett could join Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Thomas, who have all expressed an interest in rolling back reproductive rights.”

“According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are 21 states that have passed aggressively restrictive laws that could be used to restrict the legal status of abortion,” she continued.

“Mississippi is one of ten states with trigger bans that would automatically prohibit abortion if Roe V. Wade falls. Without strong protections, women, including many victims of rape or incest, would have to hopscotch across the country at whatever expense, maybe too much expense for women who aren’t rich, to seek safe harbor in one of the 14 states and Washington, D.C. that do respect a woman’s right to choose.”